An Ansa agency has launched the declaration of former premier Enrico Letta made on Dagospia, concerning the controversial affair Abertis / Atlantia, a company where the Letta (the child) has arrived after a brief period of government.
Enrico Letta has thus asked Dagospia to rectify the imaginative reconstruction of the story.
On Dagospia they are today the object of completely false reconstructions with respect to which I kindly ask the following rectification.
"I joined the Abertis Board at the end of 2016, when this was a Spanish company, and before the hypothesis of a takeover by the Italian side was aired ”. I left Abertis, resigning voluntarily, and giving public news last May, exactly when the ownership changed with the entry of Atlantia. This, precisely to avoid possible conflicts of interest with my previous functions, I chose, once I left Parliament, to exercise professional activities outside Italy. The opposite is therefore true with respect to conflicts of interest of which, by failing to tell the facts just described, I am improperly accused"
Dagospia's response
We thank Professor Letta for the clarification. We had written that he had joined the Abertis board while the takeover bid for Atlantia was in progress (April 2017), and instead he had already been there since the end of 2016. So, in summary, after the announcement of the takeover he remained in the Spanish company for more than a year, pending the approval of the European authorities. When this fateful and predictable "yes" arrived, he left Abertis "to avoid conflicts of interest with previous functions". Just one question: but if a former prime minister and several times minister risks a conflict of interest because he works for a foreign company with strong economic interests in Italy, why did he sit on the board of Abertis even though this one bought in September 2016? 51% of A4 Holding, or the absolute majority of the very Italian A4 Brescia-Padua and A31 Valdastico (then they would have risen to 85%, again while you were on the board of directors)? Perhaps he recognizes that the conflict of interest would have been more serious with the Benetton Motorways? And why?
Abertis Atlanta
On 24 December 2013, the Italian State and Autostrade per l'Italia have signed an additional Act to the Single Convention with which the five-year update of the financial plan annexed to the Convention was carried out, as required by art. 11 of the same. The aforementioned Additional Act was approved by the interministerial decree of the 30 December 2013 (2013 balance of Atlantia, published in April 2014). In other words, in the 10 months of his government, Enrico Letta "updated" the concession of Autostrade for another five years. Everything was quickly approved with a decree on the following 30 December and then classified in order not to disclose the economic details of the Convention. In 2017, while Atlantia launched the takeover bid on Abertis, the Spanish motorway giant, Enrico Letta joined the board of Abertis.
Deepening on Abertis
The Spanish girl Abertis enters the Italian motorway market, ensuring 51,4% of A4 Holding, which controls the motorwaysA4 in the stretch Brescia-Padova , A31 Rovigo - Piovene Rocchette. The signature had already arrived in August 2015, but the details of the transaction were only disclosed in the May 10 by a statement from the Iberian company. The agreement reached by the Spanish group with Intesa Sanpaolo, Astaldi e Tabacchi family expects the Spaniards to pay a total of 594 million euro for 51% of the company. The overall valuation, therefore, is around 1,2 billion euros. The operation, which will be settled in January 2023 apart from an advance of 5 million to be paid "within the next few months", is subject to the green light of the Italian government on extension of the A31.
A4 Holding manages the three-lane section for the travel side of the A4 highway known as the La Serenissima, which connects the cities of Brescia need Padova. It is the third largest motorway in terms of traffic volume in Italy, with an average daily traffic index of 91 thousand vehicles. The A31 motorway (Autostrada della Valdastico), which extends for a length of 89 kilometers, can count on an average daily traffic of 12.000 vehicles, is divided into two sections: the Vicenza-Piovene Rocchette of 36 kilometers and the Vicenza-Badia Polesine of 53 kilometers. The contract of concession of both motorways - A4 and A31 - expires in the 2026.
With the acquisition of the two motorways, the Abertis Group therefore, it makes its entry into the Italian motorway sector and increases its position as an international sector leader, with more than 8.500 kilometers of motorways under management. From a financial point of view, the acquisition of the two assets will enable Abertis to consolidate approximately approximately one in its financial statements 610 million euros in revenues and around 200 million euros of gross operating margin each year.
For the Spaniards it is not the first attempt to enter the Italian highway sector. Nine years ago, the merger with Autostrade per l'Italia of the Benetton family was announced. The government Prodi blocked the operation: the then Minister of Infrastructure Antonio Di Pietro went sideways denying authorization.
Dagospia source